NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocks rotor blades to fly to Mars.
Image: NASA
NASA’s Perseverance rover collected its first samples from Mars a year ago, and they will likely reach Earth in 2033, but without the help of Mars probes collecting samples from Europa.
NASA launched Perseverance in 2020, following nine years on the Curiosity rover, and landed it on the red planet on February 18, 2021 to explore and extract material from Mars’ Jezero Crater.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter took snapshots of the landing.
Perseverance collected its first rock samples in September 2021 and these are now inside sealed sample tubes, but they are attached to the fourth planet from the Sun. Whether these really return to Earth is not a fact and requires the assistance of rovers from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
WATCH: NASA’s cute space robots just hit another milestone
NASA says it has finished revising the system requirements for its Mars Sample Return campaign, which now excludes ESA’s Airbus-built Sample Fetch Rover and its associated second lander. That decision came after a meeting between NASA and ESA officials about Mars sample returns earlier this month.
The vehicle to bring samples from Mars back to Earth is the Earth Return Orbiter, which NASA plans to launch in the fall of 2027, followed by its Sample Retrieval Lander in the summer of 2028. NASA released a sketch of the Sample Lander retrieval in April. The samples from Mars are expected to reach Earth in 2033, NASA said in a press release.
The changed rover list means that the Perseverance will be the primary vehicle for bringing samples to the Sample Retrieval Lander.
“The conceptual design phase is when all facets of a mission plan are put under a microscope,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science.
“There are some significant and beneficial changes to the plan, which can be directly attributed to Perseverance’s recent successes at Jezero and the amazing performance of our Mars helicopter.”
WATCH: NASA’s asteroid mission delayed by software delays
The Sample Retrieval Lander will have two helicopters that collect samples. Its design is based on Ingenuity’s helicopter, which has outlived its intended life by a year. The new helicopters are a “secondary capability” for sample recovery.
Despite the removal of ESA’s Sample Fetch Rover from the Mars sample return program, NASA says that ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter and its NASA-provided capture, containment and return system “are elements vital parts of the program architecture”.
NASA plans to enter the one-year preliminary design phase in October, during which time it will create engineering prototypes of the mission’s core components.
For what it’s worth, ESA’s 22 participating states will “consider discontinuing development of the Sample Fetch Rover” at their next meeting in September, according to NASA.
ESA officials say they remain committed to their Earth Return Orbiter.
“ESA is continuing full speed development on both the Earth Return Orbiter that will make the historic round trip from Earth to Mars and back; and the Sample Transfer Arm that will robotically place sample tubes in aboard the orbiting sample container prior to its launch from the Red Planet’s surface,” said David Parker, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotic Exploration.